Columbia // Current

Viagra Dessert Anyone?

A group of young Colombian student chefs have unveiled a new dessert made from passion... more

akassan
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1 day ago
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Sony in the hunt.

A Columbia Records executive has confirmed that they are in negotiations to sign... more

hiphopnation
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5 days ago
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Chavez, troops to prepare for war

More empty threats? or are Columbia and Venezuela headed for war?

lmbowler
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6 days ago
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1 comment

slayings in Venezuela spur Hugo chavez to up border sercurity

10 recent killings along the border of Venezuela have spurred Chavez to up security... more

ksutherland27
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21 days ago
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Frm Col pres Cesar Gaviria Call To Decriminalize Cocaine

Former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria tells Christiane Amanpour what the U.S.... more

copperdragon
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29 days ago
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Columbia Buys the Play E.N.R.O.N., About Rise and Fall of Energy Giant

oh yes. it's time. straight outta Movie News... more

vistapoint
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1 month ago
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US Certifies Columbia's Rights Record

The State Department said Friday it has made a legal certification of an improvement... more

ashcatash
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2 months ago
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Ecuador's Correa kicks off second presidential term

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was sworn in for a second term on Monday,... more

Barryyoung
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3 months ago
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US Movie Companies Go After The Pirate Bay - Again

Today more than ten major movie companies issued a subpoena to the Stockholm District... more

atomiclegion
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4 months ago
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4 comments

U.S. role in massive aerial herbicide spraying revealed

Despite years of ongoing, critical public health controversies in Colombia and Ecuador over the US-assisted aerial herbicide spraying of coca and poppy crops while trying to reduce illegal cocaine and heroin production, US State Department officials are pursuing that very same spraying strategy.

In fact, last year, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's administration temporarily cast aside the latest of several State Department exhortations to begin massive herbal spraying operations on poppy crops producing heroin there.

Colombian aerosol dusting of a mix of Roundup Ultra, Cosmo-Flux and other plant-penetrating agents began seven years ago. (In 2006 alone, the United Nations reported the spraying of approximately 172,025 hectares of coca crops, producing cocaine. That equals a bit over 664 square miles.)

In the meantime, untold thousands of Colombians and Ecuadorians have become sick from the blended chemical spray. Studies have shown the environmental dangers of inhalation and skin and eye saturation of the floating mist. And critically valuable maize, yucca and plantains have been destroyed in large swaths of the fertile country.

For years, DynCorp International of Fort Worth, Texas, has had the lucrative US multimillion-dollar annual contract for Colombian aerial spraying operations.

The company is being sued in Washington, DC, and US District Court by a class of 3,000 Ecuadorians who claim spray blown over the border from Colombia has sickened them.

"Glyphosate is used all over the world without these kinds of claims," said Gregory Lagana, a DynCorp spokesman. "We spray in Colombia, and there Glyphosate is used extensively. But we don't have any complaints where we spray it and what we do when we spray it. If there are health problems in Ecuador, they are certainly caused by something else." The spray itself, said Lagana, "is prescribed by the governments of Colombia and the United States. Monsanto makes the spray."

Monsanto, the herbicide manufacturer, has from time to time been identified by various Internet sites as the supplier of Roundup Ultra to Colombian spraying operations. But, through spokeswoman Tamara J. Craig Schilling, Monsanto refused to say whether the company is or was a supplier for Colombian spraying. Schilling refused to disclose the differences between regular Roundup and Roundup Ultra. The company claims Roundup is not harmful if instructions on the label are followed. Schilling said a Monsanto official in Mexico referred all such inquiries to the State Department. But, Monsanto also lists an office in Colombia inside its website.

Along with Dow Chemical, Monsanto was one of several US Army suppliers of the infamous Agent Orange, the herbicide used to deforest huge areas of jungle during the Vietnam War. The chemicals were alleged by many in multiple lawsuits to have caused birth defects and cancers among a large population of natives as well as US soldiers and their families.

Despite DynCorp spokesman Lagana's claims that Colombians are not being sickened by the spray, an American Friends service report, as early as 2002, said there were indeed health repercussions in Colombia as well. They cited the Putumayo Health Department report as saying: "Three municipalities targeted by spray campaigns from December 22, 2000, to February 2, 2001, indicated that medical personnel in three local hospitals reported increased visits due to skin problems, gastrointestinal infections, acute respiratory infection, and conjunctivitis following spraying."Despite years of ongoing, critical public health controversies in Colombia and Ecuador... more

JanforGore
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4 months ago
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The Most Striking Must-see Churches in the World One

A visit to a church is recommended, as it is a building that leaves a lot of memories... more

CHANLEEPENG
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4 months ago
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SOAS: No immigration raids on campus

While the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London was sponsoring... more

worldwrite
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4 months ago
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One indigenous person murdered every 72 hours in Colombia

With 1,300 indigenous Colombians having been killed in the last seven years as a result of the ongoing conflict, at the end of May, the country's indigenous leaders announced plans to form a 100,000-strong "national indigenous police force". This is aimed at combating what leaders describe as the "increasing trend towards genocide and extermination."

Colombia's 1.3 million indigenous people are consistently caught in the crossfire between warring parties as the protracted conflict continues to encroach on their territories. In the face of official indifference regarding their situation, they have now decided they need to take proactive measures to protect themselves.

Luis Fernando Arias, leader of the Colombian Indigenous Organization said that the situation equates to "an indigenous person being murdered every 72 hours in Colombia."

Indigenous leaders have assigned blame to all "armed parties" in Colombia which includes the army, paramilitary groups and the FARC and ELN guerrillas.

The impact of violence on Colombia's indigenous people has long been the concern of local and international human rights organizations. These include the United Nations and the Inter American Commission on Human Rights which, over the past decade have produced a number of reports condemning rights abuses against indigenous and afro-descendant populations in the country.

According to Colombia's Office of Human Rights and Displacement (Consultoria para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento) an estimated 1.3 million indigenous people make u 3.4 percent of the country's 44 million national population, yet represent a disproportional 16 percent of the nearly 3 million people who have been internally displaced by the war.

Colombia's indigenous populations are located mainly in the south-eastern part of the country, as well as in the southern region of the Amazon and in the northern Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. All of these areas now experience high levels of armed conflict and territorial dispossession.

The organization Cumbre Continental Indígena has proposed the demilitarization of indigenous territories as one way of removing indigenous Colombians from the ongoing conflict in their country.With 1,300 indigenous Colombians having been killed in the last seven years as a... more